The girl who tried
by LovelyLivy
Summary: ...and couldn't, because sometimes life is just too hard. Tiva. Past Tony/OC.


**...Because I still haven't imagined Tony's first love. And, I just read the amazing book, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. I strongly suggest it.**

**Oh, and this maybe a little confusing (as all my writing is) because I needed fillers and I jump around in time a lot. Hope you can keep up! **

**This alludes to a lot of sad, depressing things, so I don't think anyone younger than twelve should read it (because it was written by one).**

**-Alivia**

**Disclaimer: I do not own.**

* * *

><p>The sun shone brightly through the spacious windows, casting an orange glow upon his sunken face and his work place. Deep circles were cast around his eyes and his hair was tousled about in a lackadaisical way.<p>

It was nearly five hours into a brand new day, and he had not slept in twenty-eight.

She watched him.

Precariously balancing a ball-point pen in her fingers, her attention was drawn from him for merely a few seconds. She wrote the last of many signatures. A deep sigh filled the hollow air. It puzzled her in the oddest of ways, the thoughts that proceeded to nag at her.

_He had not moved in at least an hour_.

Almost as if something had flipped a switch in him. They had traveled forward in time, maybe?

Ziva snickered. It awoke him, but only a little.

Green eyes flickered to her face. Tired. Worn.

But that was expected.

What was not _expected _was the way he reacted instantly; back going rod-straight, fists clenching in an effort to awaken his external nerves.

She blinked. She bit her lip. She sighed.

Again.

"Tony."

He wouldn't look at her.

She held her tongue as he gathered his wallet and his phone and left her in that bull pen.

The sun still licked at her skin, and every cell still felt sticky and dirty. She had still gone a day without sleep.

Now, though, she knew something was _funny _with Tony.

It irked her that she could not dare imagine what.

* * *

><p><em>You know, Tony...I really don't know how to do this. It isn't something I've planned out. I don't have some stupid, corny script. I think it would be far too inappropriate. In this situation. Ha.<em>

_Maybe that's a sign this is the wrong thing to do. Who knows?_

_I sure don't._

* * *

><p>He scrubs a sweat-tinged palm across his face, turns right at the stop sign.<p>

D.C. is barely awake this early, on a Sunday.

It doesn't seem fitting, right now.

Nothing seems fitting, considering...everything.

The air conditioner is revved up to its max. The leather seat still sticks to him and won't let go. The sun is still rising. A lot of things still are happening.

Will always happen.

* * *

><p><em>Remember...when Mr. Brewer talked about decisions? The ones we can make as people. How they effect everything. Remember how we laughed and said it was all bullshit? That an eleventh grade guidance counselor was just trying to make us think about voting rights?<em>

* * *

><p>She takes a sip of her mango smoothie and cracks her neck. Ziva refills her gas tank in peace, a seldom privilege. Taking out her card from her leather bag, she takes note of her phone as well.<p>

She tries not to think about calling him.

He did not ask to be bothered. He is likely just tired.

Her metaphorical gut lets out a horrific scream of displeasure.

* * *

><p><em>We were wrong.<em>

* * *

><p>She is not stupid. She knows the way she feels is not irrational. Feelings became rational the moment Saleem removed the fabric from her head.<p>

Why does she care?

Because she just does. That is the only type of justifying proof she will give for feelings.

* * *

><p><em>You have to understand that I never meant to hurt you, Tony. I never meant to harm anyone.<em>

* * *

><p>The house is quiet. Tony shrugs off his coat and duly notices that fact everything cracks when he moves. He wants to sleep.<p>

He can't.

* * *

><p><em>That night you told me you loved me. For a tenth of a nanosecond, my world was perfect. We were all laughing, smoking, cutting up, taking shots. <em>

_Regular stuff._

* * *

><p>It puzzles her that he would not say anything to her. They had been partners for almost six years. They had acknowledged the fact that there was something more the day EJ Barrett left the building. They figured it out over rum and coke, and acted upon it that night, in his apartment.<p>

They never spoke of that night.

The fact that he would not say a word about it makes her wonder about regret. About indecision, and sadness. Makes her wonder if Ray should really be ignored.

His black velvet did hold many promises.

* * *

><p><em>Then...everything went wrong. <em>

_My dad would've died if he'd seen the way some of those girls were acting. _

_The way I was acting._

* * *

><p>Water is cold and rapid. It hits him, and he moans.<p>

Tony stands there, under the spray, for nearly eight minutes, and doesn't move.

His legs start to shake, so he turns it off and dries off.

He does not look in the mirror.

* * *

><p><em>You've always been my best friend, Tony. Well, since eighth grade. <em>You _never really did anything wrong. _

_Then again- to society, to Angela's mom, to the Ohio State Police- none of us did anything wrong that night. Hmmm._

* * *

><p>Tali David once told her sister that she did not want to grow up.<p>

Said it amongst tall grass and white sand and rolling waves. It was a mere whisper.

Ziva was twelve. Her sister was five.

The older girl scoffed and furrowed her eyebrows at her sister's apparent lack of sense. Said, 'I do not wish for the sun to rise tomorrow, or the fish to die.'

Tali cried.

Ziva David, thirty-something and a citizen of the United States, watches a little girl cry as her mother tells her she cannot have a candy bar.

For some reason, the little girl reminds her of Tali.

* * *

><p><em>Somewhere in between my first and last swig of beer, that I remember, at least, that guy put something in our drinks. <em>

_But it was just the girls who started passing out, so maybe you all started giving your girlfriends roofies._

_Maybe you knew, Tony._

* * *

><p>Anthony Dinozzo Sr. Still hasn't called his son. He waits, and watches the expensive watch on his wrist, and strokes some young girl's thigh with twisted delight.<p>

His son sits in his apartment, and cries. He remembers.

The older man with the same eyes, drinks.

* * *

><p><em>I've never been sadistic. You know that. She was found with her panties around her ankles and a slice to the jugular. She didn't put up much of a fight, they say.<em>

* * *

><p>"You are one strange guy, Tony DiNozzo."<p>

"Right. I'm the one making the classic movie quote, and you're the one telling me you've never had sex."

She laughs, throwing back her gold curls over one bare shoulder. The sixteen year old boy thinks that the blue tank top doesn't cover much. She smirks, her bright pink lips spread into a distinguished line.

"I said I've never made love, you arrogant, sex-crazed fiend. You don't have one passionate ligament in your body, do you?"

White teeth gleam in the darkness of his bedroom. He pulls her onto his lap.

"You used big words. You know I didn't understand a word you just said."

"Oh, shut up-

He kisses her.

* * *

><p><em>-the thing is, I remember her screams.<em>

* * *

><p>Her dark skin stood out among the pale sun. The day slowly began to creep up upon her. She licked her lips and panted. Tied her tennis shoe tighter and stretched out her quad.<p>

Her mahogany locks clung to her sweat ridden forehead.

Two miles down, three to go.

She smiled big at an older man and his wife as they passed her on the trail.

Ziva David always admired people like that.

* * *

><p><em>Your father is a great man, Tony. <em>

_He gives you cars, and credit cars, and fancy clothes. You, getting girls, has never bothered me. But your Dad was always so nonchalant about you. You said once he cared more about the green than the red._

_We were really wrong, I guess. _

_Or were we?_

* * *

><p>"What are we doing?"<p>

She shifted atop the light grey bed sheets, her naked form molded to his with sweat and fluids. She shrugged. He pursed his lips.

"I thought you were the one who wouldn't stop talking."

"Tony, you know what I mean. We're best friends. We have sex sometimes. It feels pretty damn good. There isn't much to think about."

The way she said it, he knew the topic wasn't open for conversation.

In a way he was relieved.

And, in a way, it made his stomach hurt.

* * *

><p><em>You have to wonder if she knew she was going to die. Tony, you didn't do anything. That's not my point. And, in a way, it is.<em>

* * *

><p>The white sheets were frigid against her skin.<p>

She moved, only to be harmonized with more cold. No one else was in bed with Ziva David.

Six hours ago, there was.

It makes her eyes tingle in the strangest of ways.

They'd had a few drinks. They'd talked. And theorized, and argued. They'd kissed. And touched. And moaned. They'd done ItwithacapitalI.

So what?

So what?

So. What.

She guesses, to him, it did not mean a thing. There is nothing but the empty bed and her naked, tender flesh, to back her opinion. EJ is gone. Ray is gone.

And everything is still not fine.

* * *

><p><em>You didn't have anything to drink that night. You...were perfectly capable. <em>

_Michael Hendrickson is shorter than you, baby. And I know you got an A- in physics, even if you told everyone you got a C._

* * *

><p><em>Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.<em>

"Hey...wait!"

The crowd is smothering. The strobe lights make his head hurt.

"Please...Tony...stop!"

_Boom, boom, boom, boom._

She pulls at the collar of his shirt, finally catching up to him. He could swat her away, overpower her. He doesn't.

She swipes at her dark green eyes and blinks rapidly, her cheeks flushed, her ears hot.

He won't look at her.

_Boom, boom, boom._

"Why are you acting like this? It's almost as if you're...jealous."

His eyes dart to hers rapidly, his mouth opening and curses spurting out simply and rushed. She wants to vomit.

He wants to scream.

The bass throbs.

_Boom, boom._

"Why do you have such a goddamn problem with him? I thought you were friends with him!"

Her fingernails dig into the soft flesh of his arm. He doesn't flinch.

He looks at the small mole on the curve of her throat, studies. Thinks.

_Boom._

"I don't want to share anymore."

_Boom._

He kisses her.

* * *

><p><em>You could've stopped him.<em>

_But I forget one vital fact;_

_He had a Daddy who practically owned your's._

* * *

><p>"Junior, just catch the damn ball!"<p>

The summer heat is scorching upon tender, fair skin. The young father does not think to put protection on his eight year old son. His wife usually does that. His wife usually thinks.

His wife is dead.

"I don't wanna! It's stupid!"

The young father slaps his son.

Tony DiNozzo starts excelling at baseball.

He also has a really nice sunburn.

* * *

><p><em>Remember when Senior called that guy, the day her body was found? <em>

_What did he say to you?_

* * *

><p>A beer bottle was thrown across the room. It shattered upon the pristine white wall.<p>

Twenty five years prior, the same thing happened.

"What the hell have you done?"

The eighteen year old stares at the wall, and the shards of broken glass.

He doesn't speak. He doesn't think.

His cheeks are bluish, because he tries not to breathe as well.

* * *

><p><em>Mike was an ass. Didn't even have the dignity to respect her corpse. Said to me in the limo, after her funeral, 'She asked for it.'<em>

_When I got home, I threw up._

* * *

><p>Ziva David hates it when her father is drunk. He screams, and throws things. Hits people. Screams some more. Tells secrets that are never to be told.<p>

Once, she got brave and told him he could 'go off himself.' He slapped her harder than he ever had before.

She never says anything again.

Years and years and _years _later, she feels tinges of fear when Tony screams at her for the first time. Then, he sees her flinch, and gets this funny look in his eye.

He doesn't scream at her anymore, if he can help it.

* * *

><p><em>She was raped with a beer bottle.<em>

* * *

><p>The Israeli woman has been back in America for three days. She ate something today, because the doctor said that she was anemic and needed some type of fuel if she wanted to stay awake.<p>

She ate an apple.

It is funny, because when she sees it again it is much redder than it was going in.

She wishes, for a mere moment, that she could kill the man who did this to her.

But he is dead, and Tony would not let her leave him again. Period.

* * *

><p><em>As I said, none of this was scripted. I didn't want anyone to go to jail. I know that would crush you, if you lost your father. Regardless of what you say.<em>

* * *

><p>It's midday in the present, and the sun has risen to its full potential.<p>

The streets of D.C. are lazy with the heat. People walk and people talk.

In his apartment, the silence reverberates and cleanses. Senior still hasn't called and Tony still hasn't slept. Everything is numb, and that's the way he'd prefer it.

* * *

><p><em>Because the thing about you, Tony, is that you have layers. You say things and you make jokes, but then there's this whole other side of you that understands and loves and cares.<em>

_That's what I love about you._

* * *

><p>The birds stopped chirping after the bombs exploded and a sixteen year old girl was killed for no reason but to bring pain.<p>

Ziva David stops caring.

She stopped going to the beach, and stopped wondering about a future and little dark-skinned babies of her own. She stopped wondering about happiness.

Then, all of a sudden, this guy started making movie references, and she couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

><p><em>Decisions effect everything. Angela wanted to go to Yale. Angela chose to take her clothes off that night at that stupid party. Angela chose to drink and smoke weed. <em>

_I did too._

* * *

><p>The televison buzzes in the corner. His pillow smells like her shampoo and she buries her face in the crook of his neck. Neither will speak.<p>

"Tony...she's dead."

"I know."

He keep brushing his hand through her blonde curls and squeezing her body and she can't stop crying. And the house is still empty.

"She's dead."

"I know."

"She's dead. Deaddeaddeaddead..." Everything else she says is mumbled into his grey shirt and he doesn't care that things are starting to get wet.

That night, he kisses her forehead and they make love for the last time. Senior comes home the next day, and they're still naked.

All hell breaks loose.

* * *

><p><em>Angela didn't choose to die. We did the exact same thing that night and she's dead and I'm still alive. Am I the only one who sees the problem with this?<em>

* * *

><p>A locker slams a few yards away. She flinches, and her pretty pink lips tremble and quake. Her hands jolt as she grasps for her books.<p>

Tony DiNozzo will not talk to her.

The seventeen year old girl slowly starts to drown.

* * *

><p><em>I wish so...so...so..so much...that maybe, just maybe, the decision was made for me, too.<em>

_Your father said he'd take care of everything. He didn't take care of the pain. _

_The pain I live with._

* * *

><p>He has not spoken to his best friend in two weeks. He has not felt since that night.<p>

He comes home, one day. Sees a package by the front door.

Inside, there is a video tape. The eighteen year old does not watch it until three days later, because he thinks it is for Senior.

The seventeen year old girl with blonde hair and big words is found, blue and hard, and he did not know until the whispers started making their way around school.

* * *

><p><em>You said you loved me. I know you do, and that's why I said it back.<em>

_But Angela loved Michael too._

* * *

><p>The day is starting to wane, and he still stares at a spot on his wall.<p>

Ziva David sits in her car, just outside his apartment, contemplating going inside.

Contemplating facing things that are never to be faced, in her world.

She slams the car door shut seven minutes later.

He squeezes the bottle of pills a little too tight.

The top pops off.

* * *

><p><em>Everyone who was there that night remembers some frayed piece of her death.<em>

_The can do it._

* * *

><p>The doorbell rings, and he is slow to move. He wonders if he could just scream and they would leave. But then he hears her voice, caramel and honey. He shivers, and stands.<p>

The metal door handle is bare against her lithe fingers. She feels her saliva upon the hair pin she is using. The door opens.

She stares, her brown eyes gentle, but so aware.

* * *

><p><em>I just can't, anymore.<em>

* * *

><p>They say nothing, and he leads her to the worn couch. He pushes her hair back and she wants to question so badly.<p>

His lips, against hers, and hard and leave no room for words.

* * *

><p><em>I'm so sorry, Tony.<em>

* * *

><p>She wakes in the morning, and he is still there.<p>

He tells her everything, and she can't help but listen with accepting grace, watching as the sun begins to rise in the dawn of a new day.


End file.
